You should check out Autopackage. Programs such as inkscape and Xara which use that installer are a breeze to install on any distribution; if dependencies are required the user is informed in a user-friendly manner, plus the user is prompted for the root (or sudo) password where/when privilege escalation is required rather than the installer's simply failing in a user-unfriendly manner. Meeting those dependencies is still difficult on some distros (notably Fedora and Redhat, which tend to lag behind others) but it's still far easier than most package management-based installers.
Current success does not guarantee future existence.
Woolworth K-Mart Caldor Zayer/Ames Sears almost went under a decade ago Wordperfect Commodore Atari Coleco Texas Instruments RCA (RCA is just a brand name now) Osborne Zenith (just a brand name now) Kodak (well, it has a faint pulse, but not much of one) Polaroid (it's comatose, on life support now) Service Merchandise AMC Packard Studebaker Tower Records Pan-American Airways (just a brand name now) Tonka/Kenner Child World
Slashdot has been accused of it before. At least we have seen stories about it on the main page. Not to the extent were it needed shut down or anything but it was neccesary once or twice for the editors to defend thier practice. I know this because I remeber the story submisions on it.
. . . which is idiotic, considering that most companies CRAVE attention. Garnering the attention of sites like./, digg, and even second-rate sites like Fark can only be a publicist's or marketer's dream. Of course, that's not the case when a company is doing evil, but for product visibility, what better way to gain immediate positive visibility on the web is there than to get featured on one of these sites?
Any company which would even dream of suing OSTG/Slashdot for linking to them, gaining free exposure, simply does not deserve to remain in business.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe were remakes; however both were very necessary, IMHO.
In the case of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original take was vastly different from the book; that is, the only similarities were character names and the most basic premise (e.g., Charlie wins one of the five golden tickets). Pretty much everything else was different from the book. The original with Gene Wilder was still fun to watch (and the analog CGI lyrics were interesting to watch, making the LSD/hippy influence obvious) but it was pretty much an original story. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp still veered from the book, but not drastically so. Both are fun to watch, both featured great actors as Willy Wonka, but I much prefer the newer one since a) Johnny Depp did a great job portraying a surreal man-child (Wacko Jacko-like, only without the sexual/pedophile creepiness) - while watching that I almost think that Depp BELIEVED he WAS Wonka, and b) Charlie was written with much better dialog. I always cringed when Charlie goes into this drawn-out monologue with his mother saying "I'm not going to win that ticket, in case you're wondering. I'm not going to win that ticket. Blah blah blah." That, IMHO, ranks among the worst-written scenes in the history of cinema. The musicals in the Wilder movie are great, but Charlie's lines? Eh, not so much.
Now, in the case of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: I read C.S. Lewis "Chronicles of Narnia" series straight through (all seven books) about once every year (I even found a PDF of it online, which makes it much more convenient for when I'm waiting for meetings to start, while traveling, etc.) and I enjoy it all the more every time. I'm glad they remade this with modern effects because the original BBC productions of this series are painful to watch, and lousy even by special effects and makeup standards in its own time. Heck, The Wizard of Oz uses mid-1930s special effects techniques and the end result is much more enjoyable. Also, the modern take, while not 100% true to the book, is about as good as anyone could possibly expect anyone to produce within the typical 90-120 minute runtime which American audiences seem to require -- Plus much of the movie scenery was EXACTLY how I had always pictured it from C.S. Lewis' descriptions; the lantern waste, the White Witch's castle, Mr. Tumnus' dwelling, and so forth. I'd prefer the movie were more complete and extended like LoTR was, but I don't think that it would have done as well at the box office had it been more complete and used less creative license. I hope that the rest of the series is more extended (plus I heard an extended cut is being released on DVD, which I am really looking forward to).
The thing is: some remakes are worthwhile, and in some cases almost required to do the original novel/book/story justice, while others are money grabs capitalizing on a franchise. Revenge of the Nerds is a perfect example of that: it was very well done (at least I and II were), as were Police Academy I and II. After the second movies, both franchises got REALLY stupid because the producers seemed to think they had to go more and more over the top, but those original movies were done so well, and are so silly, fun to watch, WHILE having a plot, that any remake can only hurt the franchise.
Serenity: the Firefly series going to the big screen: I don't think it did well because there was not enough promotion. The network did the worst possible thing they could in every way concerning handling of the series (airing it opposite Stargate:SG1, which was already well-established, not promoting it enough (just like Arrested Development), and not premiering it following a show with a strong following (e.g., Simpsons). I never even knew Firefly existed until it was canceled, and only saw it courtesy Bittorrent after hearing how good iwas (by then, it was already off the air). When it came to Serenity, I thought it was a
How does one code around double clicks, toolbars (microsoft renamed it to a "ribbon" so ZOMG it's new, novel, and non-obvious!), and double-linked lists?
The growth potential of the market outside the US is far greater than that which Microsoft has and does enjoy.
This is why Microsoft is among those companies filing frivolous patents on everything imaginable, including industry standards (some of which they proposed and encouraged others to adopt and implement, such as C#), obvious implementations, and prior art, and is among the companies lobbying for both patents abroad and for mutual reciprocal enforcement of IP by other countries (e.g., getting the EU to enforce US patents and copyrights, and trying to push for software patents in the EU along with enforcement of foreign IP in the US).
Really, if I can go out on the limb with some speculation that makes tinfoil hat-wearing nuts build huge conspiracy theory web sites: they are probably proponents of a single global government so that they can be the software company at the top of the patent pyramid, so it won't matter whether or not they produce anything good, or anything at all for that matter, no matter WHO sells software, Microsoft gets a nice tidy cut of the sale.
That is not the right to "own" or "use" a copy, but a grant to allow the redistribution of a copyrighted work. A completely different topic altogether.
This is likely on the mind of every patent clerk at the USPTO: "If we accept these software patents, we collect patent application fees and keep our jobs. Let the courts sort it out since we don't understand this stuff, it's all greek to me anyhow."
What are the patent trolls doing now -- reading computer science textbooks and language tutorial books and trying to figure out clever redefinitions of these techniques because they can't be bothered to create product (e.g., new wealth) to offer in the marketplace?
This is:
- prior art
- obvious use of technology
- using existing technology exactly as intended AND documented
- merely a clever rewording of existing techniques
America really, REALLY needs to eliminate software patents, and the USPTO should issue a statement saying "to protect your software innovations, refer to the Copyright Act." But of course, patent application fees keep the USPTO running and provide job security, so we won't see that common sense rule come into place in the foreseeable future.
Google are the ones here that are not verifying the URLs and attempting to use bad links.
Googlebot presumes all provided links are good until it touches each one and sees the response header. If a 200 or 302 comes back, obviously it's a valid URL handled by the server. Whether the target of that URL is malicious or not is not really for Google to determine; all they do is crawl linked and submitted sites via an automated process. The responsibility is shared between Microsoft and the server admin to ensure that Windows patches are released and properly installed, respectively.
I wonder - if they "show edits" will there be proprietary stuff Microsoft still tried to kept hidden, revealed? Will there be comments like "Fucking Euros, there goes our monopoly" or comments like "let's give them this info, that's okay, we'll just push patents through and then sue whoever actually tries to implement according to these specs" -- THAT would be amusing.
They tell us all the time that they are nice, and that they are striving hard to protect the starving artists who put in a ton of work to produce these films. Are you implying that this is not true and that the MPAA is not made up of nice people? OH NOES tell me it ain't so!!! I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that you would make such allegations!;)
- First sale doctrine already covers this
- Fair Use clause already covers this
- the Interoperability clause of DMCA explicitly allows this
So I fail to see what is newsworthy, other than that the people responsible for these idiotic laws are FINALLY acknowledging that we have these rights.
But I thought companies such as IBM only use their patent portfolios defensively, particularly concerning patents over trivial and/or obvious "inventions?" Isn't that what a number of users here have been claiming? I'm confused!;)
I like my "thick client" just fine. I never have to worry about viruses (Linux), I like having my data local because I do not have to depend on having enough bandwidth for the machine to be responsive. I like being able to control not only which applications I have installed, but which versions I have installed. I like being able to choose between Gnome/Metacity, XFCE, KDE/kwin, Compiz, Beryl, and combinations thereof.
Thanks, but no thanks. If Google does a Linux distribution (KDE-based) I'll be all over it, but a thin client? No thanks.
There aren't any controls released to facilitate the development of this? You mean they seem to think that independent developers need THEIR permission to develop custom controls which are actually derived from Adobe's GUI techniques, which predate Microsoft's "innovative" ribbon by at least ten years?
How "generous" of Microsoft to grant such permission!
Hey Sun! Take a good look at Microsoft's ribbon, then at Adobe Creative Suite, realize that Microsoft's patent is nothing more than a farce based on Adobe's original take on this (they just didn't call it a "ribbon") and go to town in OpenOffice.org.:)
You know, I think we should start looking up Microsoft's patents and point out any prior art we can find which should invalidate them. Where is the site for providing public-review feedback on patents to the USPTO - it's separate from the USPTO.GOV site, right?
When instead you could load up on garlic, onions, ginger root, ecchinecea, and other foods and herbs proven to have anti-viral qualities, and have cayenne and mint to treat the symptoms (sure, go ahead and tell me you can heat an habanero pepper without it clearing your sinuses).
I'm glad Microsoft is so innovative, because, you know, shaping a menu and toolbar differently is new, non-obvious, novel, and there is certainly no priorart containing anything similar, certainly not anything preceding it by a decade.
Given the obvious use of technology here and the subjectiveness of what may constitute a ribbon, and how broadly companies like Microsoft tend to paint their patents, I would contend that their "ribbon" is simply taking the Adobe Creative Suite's toolbar scheme that has been around for a decade and simply repainting it to fit in Microsoft Office components. Likewise, one can argue that since context-sensitive toolbars have been around for about 20 years, and buttons in those toolbars have optionally spawned menus when clicked for at least ten years, that there is NOTHING AT ALL new about a Microsoft "ribbon" aside from the artwork, which is covered by COPYRIGHT, not a patent.
Funny, I find KDE far more productive than Windows' explorer desktop.
I find SQL Server to be far more productive than Oracle, because in addition to the (weak) CLI and ODBC, SQL Server has a usable GUI.
I find MySQL far more productive than either because in addition to the CLI, there are FULL GUI apps, FULL web front ends, AND ODBC. Yeah, there's a web front end, but it's kind of weak.
The catch with the open source solution is: you have to know that mysqlcc, mysql-administrator, mysql-query-browser, and phpMyAdmin exist, and you have to be inclined to RTFM because you probably won't stumble across them by randomly poking around the Start menu until you find it.
No, because real sysadmins don't put up with that shit and say "Sure, PHB, I'll put that in my task list and assign it the proper priority" and then continue to do the right thing despite the PHB's fancies.
Slashdot Mirror
You should check out Autopackage. Programs such as inkscape and Xara which use that installer are a breeze to install on any distribution; if dependencies are required the user is informed in a user-friendly manner, plus the user is prompted for the root (or sudo) password where/when privilege escalation is required rather than the installer's simply failing in a user-unfriendly manner. Meeting those dependencies is still difficult on some distros (notably Fedora and Redhat, which tend to lag behind others) but it's still far easier than most package management-based installers.
Current success does not guarantee future existence.
Woolworth
K-Mart
Caldor
Zayer/Ames
Sears almost went under a decade ago
Wordperfect
Commodore
Atari
Coleco
Texas Instruments
RCA (RCA is just a brand name now)
Osborne
Zenith (just a brand name now)
Kodak (well, it has a faint pulse, but not much of one)
Polaroid (it's comatose, on life support now)
Service Merchandise
AMC
Packard
Studebaker
Tower Records
Pan-American Airways (just a brand name now)
Tonka/Kenner
Child World
Need I go on?
. . . which is idiotic, considering that most companies CRAVE attention. Garnering the attention of sites like
Any company which would even dream of suing OSTG/Slashdot for linking to them, gaining free exposure, simply does not deserve to remain in business.
I, for one, welcome our claymation overlords, and respectfully request more Wallace and Gromit.
:)
Thanks for listening, Aardman Animations.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe were remakes; however both were very necessary, IMHO.
In the case of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original take was vastly different from the book; that is, the only similarities were character names and the most basic premise (e.g., Charlie wins one of the five golden tickets). Pretty much everything else was different from the book. The original with Gene Wilder was still fun to watch (and the analog CGI lyrics were interesting to watch, making the LSD/hippy influence obvious) but it was pretty much an original story. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp still veered from the book, but not drastically so. Both are fun to watch, both featured great actors as Willy Wonka, but I much prefer the newer one since a) Johnny Depp did a great job portraying a surreal man-child (Wacko Jacko-like, only without the sexual/pedophile creepiness) - while watching that I almost think that Depp BELIEVED he WAS Wonka, and b) Charlie was written with much better dialog. I always cringed when Charlie goes into this drawn-out monologue with his mother saying "I'm not going to win that ticket, in case you're wondering. I'm not going to win that ticket. Blah blah blah." That, IMHO, ranks among the worst-written scenes in the history of cinema. The musicals in the Wilder movie are great, but Charlie's lines? Eh, not so much.
Now, in the case of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: I read C.S. Lewis "Chronicles of Narnia" series straight through (all seven books) about once every year (I even found a PDF of it online, which makes it much more convenient for when I'm waiting for meetings to start, while traveling, etc.) and I enjoy it all the more every time. I'm glad they remade this with modern effects because the original BBC productions of this series are painful to watch, and lousy even by special effects and makeup standards in its own time. Heck, The Wizard of Oz uses mid-1930s special effects techniques and the end result is much more enjoyable. Also, the modern take, while not 100% true to the book, is about as good as anyone could possibly expect anyone to produce within the typical 90-120 minute runtime which American audiences seem to require -- Plus much of the movie scenery was EXACTLY how I had always pictured it from C.S. Lewis' descriptions; the lantern waste, the White Witch's castle, Mr. Tumnus' dwelling, and so forth. I'd prefer the movie were more complete and extended like LoTR was, but I don't think that it would have done as well at the box office had it been more complete and used less creative license. I hope that the rest of the series is more extended (plus I heard an extended cut is being released on DVD, which I am really looking forward to).
The thing is: some remakes are worthwhile, and in some cases almost required to do the original novel/book/story justice, while others are money grabs capitalizing on a franchise. Revenge of the Nerds is a perfect example of that: it was very well done (at least I and II were), as were Police Academy I and II. After the second movies, both franchises got REALLY stupid because the producers seemed to think they had to go more and more over the top, but those original movies were done so well, and are so silly, fun to watch, WHILE having a plot, that any remake can only hurt the franchise.
Serenity: the Firefly series going to the big screen: I don't think it did well because there was not enough promotion. The network did the worst possible thing they could in every way concerning handling of the series (airing it opposite Stargate:SG1, which was already well-established, not promoting it enough (just like Arrested Development), and not premiering it following a show with a strong following (e.g., Simpsons). I never even knew Firefly existed until it was canceled, and only saw it courtesy Bittorrent after hearing how good iwas (by then, it was already off the air). When it came to Serenity, I thought it was a
How does one code around double clicks, toolbars (microsoft renamed it to a "ribbon" so ZOMG it's new, novel, and non-obvious!), and double-linked lists?
The growth potential of the market outside the US is far greater than that which Microsoft has and does enjoy.
This is why Microsoft is among those companies filing frivolous patents on everything imaginable, including industry standards (some of which they proposed and encouraged others to adopt and implement, such as C#), obvious implementations, and prior art, and is among the companies lobbying for both patents abroad and for mutual reciprocal enforcement of IP by other countries (e.g., getting the EU to enforce US patents and copyrights, and trying to push for software patents in the EU along with enforcement of foreign IP in the US).
Really, if I can go out on the limb with some speculation that makes tinfoil hat-wearing nuts build huge conspiracy theory web sites: they are probably proponents of a single global government so that they can be the software company at the top of the patent pyramid, so it won't matter whether or not they produce anything good, or anything at all for that matter, no matter WHO sells software, Microsoft gets a nice tidy cut of the sale.
Was that the movie that CNN and Faux News aired a few years ago?
That is not the right to "own" or "use" a copy, but a grant to allow the redistribution of a copyrighted work. A completely different topic altogether.
Oh but it does, but in a skeevy way:
This is likely on the mind of every patent clerk at the USPTO: "If we accept these software patents, we collect patent application fees and keep our jobs. Let the courts sort it out since we don't understand this stuff, it's all greek to me anyhow."
What are the patent trolls doing now -- reading computer science textbooks and language tutorial books and trying to figure out clever redefinitions of these techniques because they can't be bothered to create product (e.g., new wealth) to offer in the marketplace?
This is:
- prior art
- obvious use of technology
- using existing technology exactly as intended AND documented
- merely a clever rewording of existing techniques
America really, REALLY needs to eliminate software patents, and the USPTO should issue a statement saying "to protect your software innovations, refer to the Copyright Act." But of course, patent application fees keep the USPTO running and provide job security, so we won't see that common sense rule come into place in the foreseeable future.
Googlebot presumes all provided links are good until it touches each one and sees the response header. If a 200 or 302 comes back, obviously it's a valid URL handled by the server. Whether the target of that URL is malicious or not is not really for Google to determine; all they do is crawl linked and submitted sites via an automated process. The responsibility is shared between Microsoft and the server admin to ensure that Windows patches are released and properly installed, respectively.
I wonder - if they "show edits" will there be proprietary stuff Microsoft still tried to kept hidden, revealed? Will there be comments like "Fucking Euros, there goes our monopoly" or comments like "let's give them this info, that's okay, we'll just push patents through and then sue whoever actually tries to implement according to these specs" -- THAT would be amusing.
They tell us all the time that they are nice, and that they are striving hard to protect the starving artists who put in a ton of work to produce these films. Are you implying that this is not true and that the MPAA is not made up of nice people? OH NOES tell me it ain't so!!! I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that you would make such allegations!
I tagged this noshit because:
- First sale doctrine already covers this
- Fair Use clause already covers this
- the Interoperability clause of DMCA explicitly allows this
So I fail to see what is newsworthy, other than that the people responsible for these idiotic laws are FINALLY acknowledging that we have these rights.
But. . . It's on the Internet. That's INNOVATION! ;)
But I thought companies such as IBM only use their patent portfolios defensively, particularly concerning patents over trivial and/or obvious "inventions?" Isn't that what a number of users here have been claiming? I'm confused! ;)
I like my "thick client" just fine. I never have to worry about viruses (Linux), I like having my data local because I do not have to depend on having enough bandwidth for the machine to be responsive. I like being able to control not only which applications I have installed, but which versions I have installed. I like being able to choose between Gnome/Metacity, XFCE, KDE/kwin, Compiz, Beryl, and combinations thereof.
Thanks, but no thanks. If Google does a Linux distribution (KDE-based) I'll be all over it, but a thin client? No thanks.
There aren't any controls released to facilitate the development of this? You mean they seem to think that independent developers need THEIR permission to develop custom controls which are actually derived from Adobe's GUI techniques, which predate Microsoft's "innovative" ribbon by at least ten years?
:)
How "generous" of Microsoft to grant such permission!
Hey Sun! Take a good look at Microsoft's ribbon, then at Adobe Creative Suite, realize that Microsoft's patent is nothing more than a farce based on Adobe's original take on this (they just didn't call it a "ribbon") and go to town in OpenOffice.org.
(insert an F-bomb Microsoft here)
You know, I think we should start looking up Microsoft's patents and point out any prior art we can find which should invalidate them. Where is the site for providing public-review feedback on patents to the USPTO - it's separate from the USPTO.GOV site, right?
When instead you could load up on garlic, onions, ginger root, ecchinecea, and other foods and herbs proven to have anti-viral qualities, and have cayenne and mint to treat the symptoms (sure, go ahead and tell me you can heat an habanero pepper without it clearing your sinuses).
I'm aware of them, it's that Oracle's GUI sucks compared to the other players' options. Or, at least they did the last time I used Oracle (2001).
I'm glad Microsoft is so innovative, because, you know, shaping a menu and toolbar differently is new, non-obvious, novel, and there is certainly no prior art containing anything similar, certainly not anything preceding it by a decade.
Given the obvious use of technology here and the subjectiveness of what may constitute a ribbon, and how broadly companies like Microsoft tend to paint their patents, I would contend that their "ribbon" is simply taking the Adobe Creative Suite's toolbar scheme that has been around for a decade and simply repainting it to fit in Microsoft Office components. Likewise, one can argue that since context-sensitive toolbars have been around for about 20 years, and buttons in those toolbars have optionally spawned menus when clicked for at least ten years, that there is NOTHING AT ALL new about a Microsoft "ribbon" aside from the artwork, which is covered by COPYRIGHT, not a patent.
Funny, I find KDE far more productive than Windows' explorer desktop.
I find SQL Server to be far more productive than Oracle, because in addition to the (weak) CLI and ODBC, SQL Server has a usable GUI.
I find MySQL far more productive than either because in addition to the CLI, there are FULL GUI apps, FULL web front ends, AND ODBC. Yeah, there's a web front end, but it's kind of weak.
The catch with the open source solution is: you have to know that mysqlcc, mysql-administrator, mysql-query-browser, and phpMyAdmin exist, and you have to be inclined to RTFM because you probably won't stumble across them by randomly poking around the Start menu until you find it.
No, because real sysadmins don't put up with that shit and say "Sure, PHB, I'll put that in my task list and assign it the proper priority" and then continue to do the right thing despite the PHB's fancies.